28. September 2011

Angst

I haven't been blogging in the last week, because it was a hard one and I didn't really know where to start. But Holly wrote this post which I can relate to a lot, and I think I'll try and start from there.

I'm a worrier as well. But it's worse. For some reason, especially around this time of the year (I'm suspecting some kind of winter depression), I tend to get panicked and freaked out about nothing. It usually starts with a health-trigger, like having a high bood sugar or eat something that can by poisonous in large quantities like beechnuts. When I say usually I mean that it happened first two years ago, but it reoccurred twice by now in a similar manner and the last time was last week.

Ok, so what happened?
Well. Sunday morning last week I had a high blood sugar. I treated it the whole day, correcting and correcting again, but it didn't budge a lot. During the day, I slowly increased my basal rate, first to 130%, than 160%, till I reached 180% on monday morning (as you probably can guess, I didn't sleep a lot during this night, but tested and wondered what the hell was going on). I had not had ketones to that point, but this was when I called my CDE. I was worried because my bodies increased need of insulin happend so fast, and if it would drop as quickly, I could end up with a major low. (That still is a sensible thought, right?) So together we checked for all kinds of pump/set failures (not finding any of course) and decided to drop the basal to "only" 150%. Her best guess was that my body probably was fighting an infection or something. I ran some errands, not really feeling well but also not really being able to put my finger on it: I felt kinda sick, had a high pulse, I was cold... nothing so intense I couldn't have easily ignored it, though.
Two hours later I had 300 mg/dl and ketones of 2.8 mmol. (I have a meter to measure blood ketones, which is really useful.) This is when I panicked and called the medical practice of my CDE again, this time taking to my doctor. He recommended to follow the usual instructions for treating ketosis. He also offered to make an ECG to check up on my high pulse. 15 minutes later I was at the practice. I was feeling bad: My muscles were twitching from high tonicity and I felt week. But my ECG turned out very unremarkable. My doctor told my that there was no sign of me not being healthy but that my symptoms are those of a — panic attack.
I should go out, enjoy the beautiful weather and relax. Go have some ice cream (and bolus for it, of course). Amazingly enough, I was able to follow his advice. I guess I was so relieved that I'm physically ok, that I could calm down. And guess what? My symptoms disappeared within half an hour. My bloodsugar was down to 113 mg/dl within two more hours. (And then it was very low in the evening, but that wasn't really a surprise. )

So far so good. But. Since then I tend to experience angst, when my bloodsugar is out of order. I'm very uneasy about possible overtreating and high blood sugars. Which I still have, since I'm still battling an unknown infection which a basal rate of 130% and a lot of correction boluses. But I know that it is ridiculous. My doctor said: "Why are you worried? You've had diabetes for over 16 years, you know how to treat a high blood sugar." And he's obviously right, I've treated higher BS than that before. (And for the record, he's a great guy and he and the CDE both did and said the perfectly right things.)
I freaked out (and still am freaking out) and I do not even know exactly why. I know that it has been a lot worse two years ago and I now it's going to get better within a month or so. I'm feeling perfectly fine right now. Maybe there is something more underlying to all this. I don't know, and I'm not sure I want to know.
I am also not quite sure what the point of this post is other than getting it all out of my system. Pffffff...